Tom, do you think that for the most part zinfandel has outstripped it's value? I mean when zinfandel is priced above the $40 range it is completely in a range that I won't pay. As much as I love the Ridge zins, I find it hard to shell out a 35 dollar bill for one. I loved the Doug Nalle zins at $20, not so fond of them pushing $30. Dry Creek Valley wines, sometimes I wonder just what they are? I suppose that I won't be buying a lot of zinfandel in the next few years, and at my age, it might signal a dire thing.

Bob Henrick wrote: I find it hard to shell out a 35 dollar bill for one.

Impossible is the word that comes to mind!

To the topic at hand, I also have difficulty paying much over $25 for zins - the only ones I do (and only a couple of bottles per offering) is Turley - mainly due to tax and shipping rates. Have not purchased a Ridge in quite some time.

Luckily, my current favorite zin(s) is from Scherrer, and I'm lucky to be offered his 'futures' pricing for them. Makes the wines an even kinder bargain.

That for the most part, the prices of Zins are not commensurate w/ their value. For me, the real values still lie in the Syrah market. I pretty much buy all the Ridges, still, because I have a soft spot in my heart for them. And the Carlisles are, I feel, some of the best values out there and don't have a problem w/ $30/btl. But there are a bunch at $35-$75/btl that I buy to have in tastings, but would NEVER by for my own personal consumption.
Tom

James Roscoe wrote:I'm with Bob, these zins seem expensive. I would have a hard time paying more than $20 for a zin. Am I living in a dream world?

Perhaps.

Seems to me the issue here is that Zin used to fall in a lower price range than what at the time were more sought-after varieties. You could get plonkish Zin for half the price of plonkish Cabernet, top-rank Zin for one-fourth the price of top-rank Cabernet. (I'm estimating and rounding, but you get the drift.)

Over time - accelerating in the 1990s - Zin caught up with the pack. But is it really fair to complain that we now pay as much for a CalZin as a CalCab? Only if you assert that Zin is intrinsically a less worthy variety. That may be a fair assertion, but it's appropriate to recognize it if that's what we're saying.

The more troubling issue, it seems to me - and this is a development that's probably more appropriately laid at Parker's and the Speck's doors than some of the other charges against them - is that fine wine has become increasingly a high-end luxury consumer good in the past generation. As recently as the '80s, most fine everyday wines sold under $6, and anything over $10 was a real rarity. I'd bet that it wouldn't take much research to prove that all wine above the mass-market niche has increased in price far beyond the overall rate of consumer inflation since 1980.

That's something to complain about. But I find it harder to object that Paul Draper shouldn't get the same reward for his work as the Harlans (for example) do for theirs, just because he chose to work with a different grape.

Robin,
Would you stop being reasonable?!!! I wanted to rant about the price of good zinfandel. Although I'm not sure the Speck or Parker are as much at fault here as the lemmings who rush out aqnd buy up everything that scores 88 points. It's not the gods you should be mad at but their fanatical followers. I'm afraid that's true with most religions. It's especially true with things that were never meant to be religions in the first place.
Cheers!
James

Ultimately, the only one I can speak for is me. And, for me there are not any zins out there worth paying $40 for much less $75. Having said that there are damn few cabernets that are worth that to me either. And NO merlots save one if I could buy it for $75. If truth be told, I don't spend that kind of money on a bottle of wine, but I can say that I have gone to the $40+ level for some Rhones, and will undoubtly do so again. I have some left over spare ribs for dinner tonight and a bottle of 2004 Joel Gott zin to go with them but it was in the <$20 range, and we shall see if it is even worth that.

Addendum:The zin went well enough with the ribs left over since Sunday. lots of blackberry fruit, nearly sweet with the fruit level. I didn't check the alc level, but it was surely sufficient. overall it is a wine I would drink again, if someone else was buying, but the wine finished with a bitterness that I found off putting, and of late I seem to find this in a lot of zinfandel.

I don't want to depress anyone but the price of Zins are what people are willing to pay. Carlise, we get a few in the store, we started with them from the beginning after tasting them at Zap. I wish we could get a lot more, there is no problem selling them. It's not anyones fault---Parker etc
it's just plain old supply & demand. I really don't think we have any first rate Zins that are inexpensive. ($20.00 or less) Just what the market is.

Howdy folks. Thought I should weigh in on the zin pricing issue. Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if we could all buy tasty zins for under $10 a pop? I remember going through copious quantities of '88 Rafanelli at $8.75 a bottle. Ditto for the '85 Lytton Springs (pre-Ridge) at $5.99 and the '85 Dickerson and Old Hill from Ravenswood for around $10. But a lot has changed from those days.

First, great old vine zinfandel is no longer $500 a ton. Last year, the Sonoma County average was $2283 a ton with the best old-vine stuff going between $3000 and $4500 a ton. This is the same range as the average for Napa cabernet. And yet the average Napa cab is still going to cost more than the average higher end zinfandel. Also, American oak barrels have tripled in price since the 80s (from $100 to north of $300) while French oak has more than doubled (from $400 per barrel to $800 to $900). Labor costs have skyrocketed in recent years, not to mention glass, cork, foils, and pretty much every other item needed for making wine. And if you buy your land to plant zin, well... I'm not even going to go there!

I guess what I've never understood is why zinfandel is supposed to be cheap? It's like there's a barrier that zin is not allowed to cross. I taste a huge number of wines from all over the world every year. The best zinfandels deliver complexity and nuance at a far lower price than the best cabernets, chardonnays, pinots, and, I would argue, syrahs. Is there a stigma associated with zinfandel because it is largely America's "own" grape? The fact that it doesn't have a basis steeped in tradition in France, Spain, or Italy somehow makes it less noble and inferior to Americans? Is it because in general, zinfandels don't always age well? Frankly, that's an argument has never held water for me as how many wines from California truly develop complexity as they age? Very few that I've run across.

In all honesty, if zinfandel didn't cost what it does today, these low yielding vineyards would probably be ripped out. Why make $5-$7K an acre when you could replant to chardonnay or syrah and make $9-$12K an acre? It would be a travesty to lose them. They are historic treasures of California's agricultural industry.

Nice rant, Mike.
I think why Zin is perceived to be a wine that should not be expensive is because of the perception that Zin can't age; a fallacy both you and I recognize. There is this idea that only wines that can age and age for a long time are "great" wines and the only ones worthy of high prices.
Tom

Maybe a silly question, but has anyone else fallen out of love with Zinfandel? I used to have a sizeable portion of my cellar devoted to Zins, but now have less than a row. It is just not a wine I reach for anymore.

I don't know if it is the big extraction, 15.8 percent alcohol, or what -- it just does not do it for me anymore. Any one else feel the same?

I used to be a huge fan of Zins and buy nearly every one that came down the pike. I don't buy/drink nearly as much Zin as I used to, primarily because Syrah has taken its place on my radar. But I still love Zins and drink them frequently. But they are not all big/extracted/alcoholic/over-oaked Zins; they're plenty of nice drinking ones out there like Nalle and David Cafarro and DryCreekVnyds. Just gotta scout them out.
Som I guess its not that I've fallen out of love w/ Zin as much as there a lot more out there competing for my attention.
Tom

Randy Buckner wrote:Maybe a silly question, but has anyone else fallen out of love with Zinfandel? I used to have a sizeable portion of my cellar devoted to Zins, but now have less than a row. It is just not a wine I reach for anymore.

Not a silly question at all, Bucko. I might put it slightly differently, but for me, I'm the same-only-different about Zin as I am about Riesling. I like it OK, I can judge it competently on points, but it doesn't speak to my soul because my soul grew up on the traditional style of Italian and French dry table wines (and the California wines that were built on their model, pre-Parkerization), and as much as I love to range around the world and try them all, there's still a warmth and happiness that I associate with the wines I did, and do, love best.

Zin doesn't make that cut for me (and neither does Riesling), simply because they're stylistically different, each in its own way.

You know Randy, I think every wine lover could make that statement about many varieties. There was a time I was in love with CA cabernet. Then it was red Bordeaux. Then red Burgundy. My peak purchasing zin days were in the late 80s and 90s. And there were plenty of zins above 15% then. My feeling was that zin at that time was relatively underpriced in the market. I'm sure that was certainly part of the attraction. Anyway, in the mid to late 90s, it was Australian syrah for me. Now I'm nutzoid for gruner and have returned to Burgundy for whites. I'm also flipping out for southern Italian whites and reds.

I guess my point is that as wine consumers, we all go through stages. Like Tom, I don't think I've fallen out of love with any of the varieties or regions from which I've moved on. I've just found new interests to delve into. I still love a great cabernet, a great zin, a great Oz syrah. Hell, I love examples of pretty much every variety as long they're great! Even if that variety doesn't have a presence in my cellar.

Mike, you and I have pretty much arrived at the same place in our approach to wine. The only difference is probably our interest in wines from Oz, for whatever reasons I just never became enamored. My wife who really appreciates a good bottle of wine and is a fine cook has pretty much steered our wine drinking toward matching it with different food that she prepares. For example we haven't found a better wine than Zin for matching with most of the meats that come off of our barbecue. so believe it or not our Zin consumption goes up in the summer because of how we prepare different meats.
We've found that GV is one of the most versatile wines that we have discovered in years. I'm very happy to see how well your wines have been received in the market. If you get any extra cases of your wines remember Manhattan Wines will be happy to find a home for them.

Thanks Lou. Yeah, you so often hear that you can't pair these modern zins with food. Have never understood that statement as they seem to pair perfectly with so many of our meals. Sure, I probably wouldn't order a zin at Slanted Door or La Folie but with all the grilling we do at home, zin seems to fit the bill perfectly. I guess to each their own though.

Extra Carlisle? Lately about as common as sightings of Sasquatch! But if any ever turns up, will let Manhattan know.